


Smile (the worst is yet to come)

by anythingcanhappenchild



Category: Arrow (TV 2012), DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: (not explicit) - Freeform, 5+1 Things, Angst, Constructive Criticism Welcome, Don’t copy to another site, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Other, POV First Person, Sara Lance Needs a Hug, Sara Lance is a Fighter, Sara in the League, and after the League, and before the League
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-06
Updated: 2019-10-06
Packaged: 2020-11-25 16:14:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20914919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anythingcanhappenchild/pseuds/anythingcanhappenchild
Summary: I whisper, turning to Nyssa, “What?”She only shakes her head, “She found a card to play.”Suddenly worried, mentors are not meant to help their charges with these tests, I hiss out at her, “Did you tell her to do this?”“No,” she responds, with the same indecipherable expression, “I told her to fight.”ORfive times Sara is good at acting and one time she doesn’t need to be





	Smile (the worst is yet to come)

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! I hope you enjoy this! Please see warnings in the tags (general) and the end notes (more specific).
> 
> Ya'll, ya'll, this took _so long_ and I'm not even 100% happy with all of it, but perfectionism is draining so I'm posting. 
> 
> Also, the title is from Mikky Ekko's song "Smile", and if you'd like to hear an upbeat song with some painfully sad lyrics, I highly recommend it.

***(1)***

I watch as the cowed girl comes back into view. She’s stepping carefully, like a child trying to sneak across the creaky floorboards on Christmas eve.

And if that’s not the most revolting metaphor, I don’t know what is. I can’t blame her though, the way she flinches and glances over her shoulder, not after –

No, everything’s fine. Someone’s going to come and help, and – and there isn’t anyone _to _help –

Stop.

It’s never a good sign. Not being able to think about anything.

I try though, and bite out at the girl – who _knew _what going to happen, she _had_ to have known_, why didn’t she help? _– “I know you’re not here to help me escape. Kicked dogs don’t bite their owners after all.”

It’s cruel, and judging by the flinch the girl can’t suppress, it’s also true, but I only feel a grim sort of satisfaction, true words always hurt the worst. “So, why are you here then? Come to see if the new toy’s broken?”

“Define escape.” She whispers back, choked and gravelly, and I don’t think about how my voice probably sounds the same, don’t think about how it got that way, just, “What – I …. What?” And apparently my stuttering reassured the girl somehow, because she walks closer before finally lowering herself to the ground, hunched over and gripping her ribs.

I’m about to ask again, snap this time – why shouldn’t she be scared, if I am, when I am still so very terrified – when she holds out her hand and opens it.

Sitting on her palm is a single vial of, of something, and it wouldn’t make any sense but she’s looking at me like I know what it is, and “What is that?” I growl, but she doesn’t flinch this time, because

“You know the answer to that.”

And, I do. I’m nowhere near an expert on herbs or poisons, but the small flask in her hand couldn’t be anything other than one thing, not when she’s looking at me with a mixture of pity and understanding.

(I wonder if I’m looking at her the same way.)

“Why?” I finally choke out, because for all the sense it should make – shouldn’t make, how has suicide become my best option – it doesn’t make any at all. I’d be a distraction from her, but maybe they’ll kill her if she’s not the only woman on the ship, but wouldn’t they have already done that? She’ll get in trouble for this, and she’s been stepping so carefully. I can’t understand it, there’s no sense to this –

“Call it solidarity.” She finally answers, something like broken defiance in her eyes. 

And I can’t help it. I laugh.

Which clearly isn’t the response she’d been expecting, but I can’t help it, and I gasp out, “Solidarity. Solidarity – God, how has this happened,” pitching forward to lean across the bars of my cell.

And understanding has returned to her eyes, she reaches out with her hand – the one not holding death – to stroke at my hair, “I know, I know, but you have a way out, if you want it.” She’s trying to sound sincere, but the flat note in her voice rings of uncertainty. She’s playing at this – at being the kind of person who offers strangers suicide … who thinks solidarity is offering strangers death after letting them get – letting them get –

My laughter’s turned to sobs now, “Weeks ago I was studying whale activity for my grad thesis, and now, now I’m being offered a suicide pill by a _child_,” because that’s what she is: too young to be here, too young to make this sort of decision, too young to be dry-eyed through it, “talking about _solidarity_. God, what happened.”

She still isn’t crying, but she strokes my hair through the bars, and her voice is rough when she speaks, “I know, I was on a cruise, with my … my something, and when we went down – I thought they saved me … I think I was wrong.”

And it’s the uncertainty in her voice that tells me I need to leave. The way she looks around like maybe, just maybe they really did help. She’s paying penance for their aid, but she isn’t dead, is she? I wonder which way the scales will tip, if she’ll fall into the trap they laid for her, or escape. 

So, my hands are sure when I reach out to take the packet, and I move quickly so I don’t lose my nerve, because if – if those men hadn’t convinced me I needed to escape, by any means necessary, then that uncertainty would have. 

(I can’t think about escaping, not with the myriad of colors blooming across my unexpected savior. Can’t think about being rescued, not with everyone else being … being … gone. Can’t think about staying, not here, not without hope, not when I’ll be waiting. For them to come back. For me or this girl to die. For something inside me to break the way something has in her.)

(My Mama always said it’s better to die whole than live in pieces.

I think she’ll be proud of me – my choice – when I see her again. It’ll be soon, and she’ll be whole again too.)

It’s not until a moment passes that I remember to ask, “Will it hurt?”, and feel a rush of relief when the girl shakes her head slightly. 

“And it’s quick,” she whispers.

There’s still a pit in my stomach though, and I almost jump from surprise when she bites her lip and says, “I’m Sara. What’s your name?”, like the time for introductions hadn’t already passed, but I can’t ask her to stay, no matter how much I want to. She’ll be in trouble for this, no need to make it worse.

“Maria,” I respond, because, Hey, if the girl wants my name, what could it hurt, and the longer we’re talking the less time I spend dying alone. “Won’t you get in trouble for this?” I can’t help but ask. She’s done me a favor today, the least I can do is remind her that she needs to leave, hide this before anyone finds me.

But at that she grins. It’s still broken and crooked, but it’s sharp and crass, her biting response even more so, “No, I’m pretty good at playing pet after all.” 

And somehow, I feel a rush of relief, whether it’s because I now know my last action on this Earth won’t be to damn this girl, or because of my sudden certainty that she – that _Sara_ – is going to survive this, I’m not sure, but it’s dizzying. Or perhaps that’s the poison, and I lean more heavily against the bars, thankful that this nightmare I’ve entered is almost over, too faint to feel any regret.

I’m still confused though, when she settles against the bars and asks, “What was your favorite story? As a kid, I mean.”

“What?”  


“Your favorite story?” She asks, like I hadn’t just taken a homemade suicide pill.

“Jack and the Beanstalk.” I finally reply, after anxiety started to take root in the girl’s eyes, “Why?”

“Because it’s what Laurel would do.” She responds, like that was supposed to mean something to me.

And I’m still not really sure why she wanted to know, at least not until she starts a rendition of the story I hadn’t heard in years. 

A child trying to comfort me as I leave her alone in Hell. The thought grabs a hold of me – I shouldn’t be abandoning her, I’m older and she’s scared and kind enough to give a stranger her way out, too kind for a place like this. 

But it was too late. My eyes slip closed as Jack starts his ascent.

***(2)***

I’m still hearing the shot ringing through my ears when Slade crashes through the forest.

His eyes fall upon Shado and I wonder if I’ll be able to breath sometime soon, if the ringing in my ears will stop long enough for me to explain – if I’ll even get a chance to explain. Because Slade loved her, and now the air around him seems like it’s crackling with his rage, and –

Sara’s stepping forward, and I need to stop her. I need to tell him the truth, but she needs to leave first; Slade doesn’t like her, wasn’t happy when I grabbed her arm and dragged her away from Ivo. I couldn’t not though, couldn’t even after she helped interrogate me, after I listened to the horror stories from the other prisoners on the Amazo.

I couldn’t because she’s still Sara. Still the teenage girl I coaxed on a cruise with me, running away from commitment and partying the way I always had, and she – she looked _scared_.

But not in the normal way. Not like she’s scared of Slade, she was scared in a way that made me worry if she was still Sara, still the girl who’d get into fights just to prove she could and played with the kids that ended up in her father’s station and tried everything she could to get out from under her sister’s shadow.

(It’s funny. I knew all of these things before, I think. But somehow, somehow, I only _knew _once I got here.

I think I started to understand after I killed that bird.)

(I don’t know what that says about me.)

But she is, she is still Sara and Slade’s asking what happened but she’s stepping forward, not back, and I want to yell at her to _run _–

but my ears are still ringing

I’m still caught on my own scream, wondering what Shado felt in that moment.

If she was surprised? Or knew it was coming?

Did she spend her last moments hating me? Or was she too numb to even feel that?

I open my mouth to tell him, I’ll move in front of Sara – she’ll have time to run away –

(and maybe she won’t need to too, maybe Slade will know she’s blameless, and direct his rage at me)

But Sara’s already speaking, shaking a bit, but like she’d been sobbing, not like she’s lying.

Even though she is.

She tells him Ivo just went crazy, doesn’t tell him about the choice I made, the choice he gave me.

(Slade believes her. But I barely register that.)

I can’t, because Sara’s voice is shaking and her face is covered in tears and she looks like she might be about to get sick.

But –

But there’s something not … right. Something different, sharp in her eyes, coating her words, something that is both Sara and not-Sara at the same time.

I might have heard a vestige of it, when she sniped back at her sister or father or a kid at her school. Something Laurel might have had too, something Thea seemed to have been crafting. The way she covered hurt and anger with a petty mask, one that wasn’t fully developed, that had cracks others could see – exploit – but she wielded it anyway.

(Her stolen laughter in the hallways, _you need plausible deniability, Ollie, or you’ll keep getting in trouble_.)

But there was something foreign there too. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what welded that part of her mask, but I thought I could imagine it anyway.

(Sara, by herself on that ship, surrounded by criminals and torturers and brainwashers. 

Sara her voice hardened and spiteful – _prisoners do not speak _– her eyes flashing with possible regret at her betrayal but disappearing soon after.)

(Sara, surviving how she had too.)

I didn’t want to think about her being broken down and put back together. Stronger, but more brittle. Harder to break, but easier to shatter.

I wanted to remember her laughing on the Gambit, smiling at me at parties or when she came with Laurel to my home, teasing Thea and playing tag with her when she begged, so long as Laurel and I weren’t there to see.

I wanted to remember who she was before I unwittingly pulled her into … into _this_.

I couldn’t though.

She’d put herself back together with sharper edges, and maybe I didn’t see it until now, until she looked at a grieving man half collapsed over the women he loved and _lied_.

Lied to protect me. To protect herself. 

Lied without regret. Or at least without guilt strong enough to compel the truth.

For a moment I’m sure Slade will see it too. 

See how she squares herself, ready to convince him that Shado died – that Shado was _murdered _– out of pure chance, without reason, without _meaning_.

See how this mask is cracked too. Like her old one, but in different places, different ways. The imperfections in her disguise.

But he doesn’t.

I don’t know if it’s from grief, or if he doesn’t know Sara well enough to see, or if his fury at Ivo is too all-consuming to even think of another target, but he doesn’t see.

Then, I wonder if he simply doesn’t see her as a threat. If he saw the trembling, frightened girl that flinched when he reached for her, and nothing else.

(Not the anger behind her fear, or the tension throughout her body – the tension saying she intends to survive. The same tension I felt right before crushing that bird between my hands, before listening to its bones shatter and thinking –

_that was easy_.)

I see the way he scowls – but from annoyance not from rage – when he whirls around, roaring about killing Ivo, about making it _hurt_, and she flinches. 

Harder than normal.

At first, I think she doesn’t know he believes her. 

Then – I see the jagged edges of not-Sara get sharper.

She knows, knows he isn’t looking at her twice, and she’s playing to it – playing him.

(She sends a shaky smile in my direction. Reassurance. A conspiring act of comfort.

And I can see it clearly now. How she played Ivo and the crew, kept herself alive when it should have been impossible, survived months with a man who plays this sick game of Russian roulette.)

(I don’t know if says more about her or me, that all my weaknesses have been real. I never thought to fake them, exaggerate them, make them a twisted version of something passing for strength.)

She knows and he doesn’t and I think she’s just saved both our lives.

(I wonder how much of her is Sara and how much is not-Sara, pretending to be her.

Then I wonder if she’s thinking the same of me.)

I can’t do anything but go along with it. I can’t expose her lie – which must be why she spoke first – I can’t do anything but continue, with my new knowledge of Sara. 

And without Shado.

(Later, Sara straps a bomb to a man because I couldn’t keep up the lie, and I can’t imagine going home anymore.

We’re not-Sara and not-Oliver and I don’t think either of us can fix that.)

***(3)***

She’s leaning too far to the right. 

Her legs bent like I showed her, her hands ready and eyes tracking, but she’s leaning too far to the right, keeping the weight off her left leg and twisting to present her right side, not her left like I told her to. So, I know I’ll be threatening … someone … after practice. Members of the League should know better than to injure another’s apprentice outside of training. 

Unless she’s hurt herself, which would explain her attempts to conceal it.

Poorly conceal it.

No matter, I’ll punish whomever I need to, after I teach her the dangers of so clearly presenting injuries during a fight. She hasn’t learned to compensate – so I’ll teach her.

(I ignore the twinge of guilt I feel. It’s better she learns from me than Ra’s.)

So, I dart forward, moving to swipe at her legs, ready to send her to the ground – she’s learned to avoid this uninjured, but not with such an injury. So, when she twists away, just out of reach and still favoring her left side, I blink in surprise.

I move forward again, feinting to the left, and she blocks the blow, forcing me away, but –

Something changed.

But I can’t tell what before she’s tried a lunge forward, and I dodge. I take note of sudden confusing flush of confidence that crosses her face, before spinning so her left faces me. I hit against her side, but again she avoids my kick, aiming to sweep her legs out from under her.

I’m planning another feint, when a hand suddenly grabs my ankle – but I was on her left – and for the first time since I started sparring with her, I find myself on the ground, staring up at her in surprise.

She grins down at me, weight evenly distributed.

“You were faking,” I gasp out. Faking an injury, how – why –

Her grin grows, teeth bared, “Guess I’m better at the hapless trainee act than you thought.” 

“Why?” I finally ask.

“To win,” she croons, “and I did. I told you I would, I just didn’t tell you how.”

And I remember now, my jeers aimed to force her back to her feet, taunts about never winning a fight, certainly not against me. And her bitter response, bitten out between gritted teeth, her insistence that she could, she will, win. That she’s holding cards I don’t have, and she’ll use them.

She’s standing now, shoulders straight and eyes sharp, confident in her cards – her bluff – to win.

And she did. She won an unwinnable fight, stacked against years of training and experience, she won. With a bluff. A trick. A card I couldn’t read because I’d never been given it to play.

I can’t help it. I grin back, “Let us see if you can do it again.”

(But I start to wonder if Aaliyah was correct, when she said Sara would never truly belong to the League.)

***(4)***

I’m moving to see the fight, one of Sara’s first tests, a melee, when Nyssa sidles in to sit beside me, her pursed lips the only sign of frustration on her cold face.

She shakes her head when I raise an eyebrow, but leans over to speak, “She is not ready, Aaliyah.”

I only raise my eyebrow, “She has trained for only a few months, Nyssa, I doubt this is a test she is meant to win.”

But my friend, my charge, shakes her head, “Ra’s expects much from her.”

“He expects much from everyone, and she has surpassed – “

“You do not listen. He expects her to win, or else this has only been a test for me, not her.” I blink, unsure how Ra’s expects such a feat, and wondering if Nyssa’s rightful suspicion has tuned to plain paranoia, “He is frustrated, I think he expected something else from her, when she arrived, I do not know what,” she cuts me off before I speak, “all I know is he expects her to win this, and she will not, cannot.”

My jaw clenches as I watch her shoulders slump, she’s grown more attached than I expected, but I cannot truly blame her, as I feel my growing anger at Ra’s rashness, almost ready to fight him on this – no one else has advanced as quickly as she has, to throw that away in a fit of impatience –

But something catches my eye, and I can see Nyssa’s attention settle on the disturbed ground as well. Circular piles of disrupted dirt are scattered across the field.

And Sara stands in the middle, in the center of the mounds, staring Ra’s in the eye. And she doesn’t look like a dead-woman, a ghost waiting to fail her last test. Instead her lip is pulled up at the corner, and she’s leaning haughtily on the shovel dug into the ground at her feet.

“I think she may surprise you,” I whisper to Nyssa, “surprise all of us.”

She twitches her eyebrow at Ra’s – a challenge, and she knows it.

“What have you done to the field,” he finally asks, deathly quiet.

“You told me to prepare for my melee however I deem fit,” she smiles, and suddenly I remember the way she laughed at us all, the day Ra’s men dragged her before him. Nyssa saw innocence and joy in her that day. But I saw a survivor, filled to brim with spite. “Well, I decided to use a little something I knew from before,” and her voice doesn’t catch at the mention of her past life, “It turns out, I still know how to make a pretty basic pressure bomb, so,” she turns to the men waiting to fight her, “I’d watch your step.”

A gasp catches in my throat. “But don’t worry,” she calls out, “I didn’t have that much time, so only some of the mounds are explosive.”

“And only she knows which,” I whisper, turning to Nyssa, ready to celebrate, ready to continue – she’s evened the playing field child, she could win – but stop at the sight of her expression, something knowing and proud, “What?”

She only shakes her head, “She found a card to play.”

Suddenly worried, mentors are not meant to help their charges with these tests, I hiss out at her, “Did you tell her to do this?”

“No,” she responds, with the same indecipherable expression, “I told her to fight.”

Ra’s looks calm, but stiff, and I wonder if she’s actually frustrating him – a true feat – when he speaks, “Then you have chosen your weapon.” He nods towards the armed men at the sidelines, who started hugging the walls the moment Sara spoke of explosives, “take your positions.” They glare at her, moving on the thin spaces between her irregularly placed mounds. 

“Fight to knock out.” Ra’s speaks, once they’ve finally found their way into position, Sara smirking the whole time, “Begin.”

And I’m amazed, as Sara dances across the lines, clearly having memorized the maze throughout the night, while her opponents must keep their eyes on the ground.

She wields her shovel like a bo staff, before stealing a real one from a fallen opponent. Anytime one gets too close to her she escapes across the buried mines – revealing them to be fake ones, but avoiding their attacks. 

It doesn’t take long, not with the odds she created, not with the others trying to avoid explosions without knowing which mounds contained active bombs, not with the surety of her movements among the other’s second-guessed steps.

She stands among her fallen opponents, the crowd silent.

Ra’s stares down at her, and I wonder if Nyssa was right, if she was meant to fail this test, if Ra’s intended for this to be a lesson for Nyssa – do not get attached, not to anyone, not to anything – or if wanted her to succeed.

No matter. Either she failed to do what he wanted. Or she did exactly what he wanted, incorrectly.

She smirks at him and he clenches his jaw.

“You have passed your test. There will be more to come,” he grits out. “But first, you must return the field to its original state. I am sure you can do so without getting injured,” he sneers.

But her face doesn’t fall, not like he and everyone else clearly expected. Instead, her smirk grows and she carelessly throws away her bo staff, “Oh, don’t worry,” Sara calls back, and Nyssa suddenly leans back in her seat, covering her mouth, mirth in her eyes “there aren’t any bombs.”

She bites her bottom lips as her audience starts rustling, “What? You really thought I had time to dig all these holes _and _build pressure bombs,” she simpers, “No, the holes are just filled with kitchen cans … but you didn’t know that did you.”

Ra’s glares down at her, but she broke no rule, and he keeps to tradition, “Return the field to normal.”

She grins up at Nyssa.

(I imagine Nyssa sees joy.)

***(5)***

Both my babies are safe now. Laurel’s admitted to her addiction and I can help her now and Sara, Sara’s free from that League and everything that’s happened for the past six years. Or, she’s as free as she can be.

And her and Laurel made up. They made up and we’re having dinner and they’re both safe. For the first time in six years I feel like I can breathe again.

(I never thought I’d feel worse than the day my father died. I remember living for months with a weight on my chest, seeing him everywhere, in everything and only crying when I was home because _men don’t cry _and fifteen-year-old me wouldn’t challenge my friends about that.

I remember that and I remember the day I learned Sara died – days after it happened …. was thought to happen – and how ‘weight’ didn’t begin to describe the crushing feeling that settled over my entire being in that moment. A feeling that left me sure I’d be joining Sara soon, that narrowed my life to the job and the bottle, that drained the life out of me until I was spending each day just surviving.)

(Parents aren’t meant to outlive their children. And for a while there, I was certain this was because they _couldn’t_.)

I’m not sure how they reconciled. I wonder sometimes what I missed, that eighteen-year-old Sara thought running off with Oliver Queen, with her sister’s boyfriend, was a good idea. What had gone so wrong that Sara felt she needed … needed Queen, or attention, or _whatever _it was that she’d plow over her beloved sister’s heart to get it. And what did I miss with Laurel? What made her fall into my worst vice, sit in her anger and grief for so long that upon seeing her newly not-dead sister for the first time she threw a bottle at her head? 

I know I missed something. Failed them both so horribly that they’d hurt each other like this. I missed some turmoil, some havoc in Sara six years ago and Laurel just months ago.

But, at least I haven’t missed Sara’s pain this time.

No, I observe, as Sara steps between Laurel and the street, putting herself between Laurel and the drunken man ambling down the other side, her lips lifting into a snarl as her hand reaches for what must be a knife – she always has at least one now, always armed, always ready, always listening.

Laurel doesn’t notice.

But of course she doesn’t, because she doesn’t know where Sara’s been all this time, doesn’t know she’d rather poison herself than return, doesn’t know she’s been running around with the damn Arrow chasing corrupt politicians and CEOs.

She wasn’t there at the station months ago when I first heard a new vigilante was in town.

(“Jefferson, run down any recent sexual assault or harassment victims with martial arts experience. Actually, try and run down their close friends and family too, we’ve finally got a pattern on that women in black – she’s beating up rapists, saving women and stuff.”

“What makes you think we’ll have any info on her? Nobody here reports anything. For that matter, how exactly am I supposed to narrow it down? Gambling on street fighting’s been picking up here, you know that.”

“We need to start somewhere, dammit, figure it out Jefferson. The police chief is breathing down my neck – the girl’s not as high profile as the Arrow but she’s pissing off a ‘lotta high rankers –”

“Well ….. maybe that’s a good thing?”

“…. you want to have a debate about vigilante justice join a club, right now, do your damn job.”)

Or at the diner.

(My baby-girl is not-dead not-dead not-dead and she’s here and she’s _alive _and I can breathe again the weights off finally finally and –

and she’s smiling at me _I picked up a few things _as she talks in Chinese and there’s something stuck in my throat because I’ve known enough shell-shocked soldiers and officers and victims to know that look in her eye, her smile’s too fragile for my larger-than-life little girl who used to plant both feet on the ground and dare people to tell her to move who used to sneak in way too late giggling like a school-girl, but it’s still there – her too fragile smile and that look in her eyes

and

and I think I might start crying as she startles and spins around with her knife in her hand, poised to strike, when a bus boy drops the dishes he was holding. I can’t help but notice her stance – relaxed, like a predator ready to attack. (It’s made worse from her fear – I’m her father and even after way too many years for both of us and some sort of Hell for Sara I still know when she’s scared. She may hold herself like a predator, but her fear is screaming _prey_ and I can’t think about what or who shaped Sara into this because then I _will _start crying).I think about the ex-military men at my station, the rookies straight from high school and realize I’m used to seeing people hold their fear in their bodies, trying to keep it off their faces, but Sara doesn’t, she’s standing at the ready, no unneeded tension to delay her attack, a perfect solider

a perfect weapon.

(Half vicious – half vulnerable, like a cornered animal with its back against the wall.)

But I can’t think about that. I can’t think about where she learned to hold a knife like the ex-special forces cop in my station, learned to hold herself like that – practically snarling and ready to attack – or why I can still fear the terror rolling off her in waves. I can’t because I need to be strong for her, to help with whatever trouble she’s in, to make sure she can _stay _because _god _I can’t imagine who taught her those things, who taught her that fear, but she’s stayed away for six years and 

and she’s still my baby girl, but she’s lived through more than six years since the last time I saw her. I can see it in the set of her shoulders, her flickering eyes and sort-of strength in her voice as she insists on protecting me.

Defending _me _because she’s aged more than six years and I don’t know if asking for my protection ever even crossed her mind.

(Why would it? I think. She’s seen more war than I have.)

We leave the diner, but I feel a bit of that weight settle back onto my chest.)

No, Laurel couldn’t know. Sara’s doing such a good job of pretending and I’m terrified she was pretending years and years ago too. (How much of my daughter’s pain did I miss? Will I ever know what’s caused the demons behind Sara’s eyes? Why did she learn to kill? Why did she trust I’d hate her for it? Who taught her to be afraid? How much is she hiding from me now too?)

Sara’s hand springs out, wraps around Laurel’s upper arm at a crashing sound. She’s pivoted her body to shield Laurel, eyes snapping back to warn me and then to scan the skies for threats.

More of those assassins. Sent to kill her? Or us? Other enemies? 

But no. The sound ceases. 

No one comes to attack, but her hand remains on the hilt of her knife.

“Hey?” Laurel asks, her face drawn into surprised concern, “You good Sara?”

She immediately turns and smiles. It reaches her eyes. (Or seems to.) “Just fine.”

We keep going.

***(+1)***

I swing my leg across Sara’s lap, the movie behind us forgotten even as the terrible fight scene threatens to break my concentration, concentration I’m currently lavishing on a particular spot on Sara’s neck.

She half-growls half-whines and pushes her knee up against my core, trying to hurry me along, but instead I break off with a startled gasp, pushing down to meet her as she arches forward into my touch. At the delay, she curses, huffs “Ava,” and twists slightly, moving to roll us, push me against the couch and hurry us along.

But she’s used that move enough times that I can see it coming, twist the other direction and respond to the distracting pressure she’s reapplying with my own, leaning forward to capture her lips and playfully growl out a warning to _stay still, it’s my turn tonight_.

And, and it was only a moment, a brief second where her hands stuttered to a stop, freezing before starting to pull at my top again.

Only a moment, but there’s something … shaky, in her renewed tugs, something stiff in her body. Nothing so obvious as actual trembling, so clear as tensed muscles, nothing that I’m able to see, or, or really notice at all.

And, maybe, maybe if this were anything else – if _we _were anyone else, I’d forget it, brush it off as my imagination or a pinched muscle or maybe not even notice it in the first place, but this isn’t something else and we aren’t anyone else and it may not be anything I can actually see, but there’s _something_.

Something in the way it feels like the she’s holding her breath even though I can see the rise of her chest, something choked and, and almost fearful in her movements now, something strumming through what was so comfortable and primal and _easy _–

something _wrong._

And maybe I’m just imagining things –

_(god, I hope I’m imagining things)_

– but I just, I have to pull back and huff quietly and pretend like the way Sara whispers _Ava? _faintly doesn’t feel like a punch in the gut –

and _why? _why should it, she sounds like she always does but that something is pulsating against my eyes in my throat and I’m terrified but I still whisper back _okay? _and pretend not to hurt at her silent confusion and keep going _it just, something felt different? are we … are you good? _and pretend that something doesn’t grow and start to throb behind my eyes and burn in my throat as her eyes widen and break away from mine.

There’s a change this time. Something I can see and can’t pretend is in my head 

(pretend is a glitch in some programming)

it’s in an almost noticeable stiffness in her shoulders and the way her eyes flicker away and down and she seems to curl inwards just barely and if I didn’t know her so well, know how she moves and watches and smiles so well, I might have missed it.

But I do know her, and I notice, and she knows me well enough to know I’ve noticed. 

I also know what will happened next – she’ll try and distract me, spin a story well enough that’s it’s not actually a lie since we’re both trying very hard not to lie to each other but isn’t actually the truth and even though I know her, I think she could still convince me.

(Sometimes, it’s frightening to see how many skills she can wield like a well sharpened weapon, frightening because it’s those moments where she spins a story or commands a room or pulls an enemy in close enough to see her humanity that you can see how lethal she can really be.

Other times, it’s frightening to see all these skills and wonder just how she learned them all. How she died for six years and came back knowing how to kill, but so much more too.)

(So much worse, I think, still feeling that something burning and spreading and it’s almost painful …. I can’t imagine how it feels to her.)

She could convince me, so I don’t let her. I lean forward press my forehead against hers, whisper out _it’s okay it’s okay _like a promise (I hope that’s what she hears) like a prayer (I hope that’s what someone hears).

I press our lips together, her almost-but-not-quite hesitant response finally pushing that something to spill out from my eyes – _it’ll be okay_.

She grips my arms back then, as hard as I’m holding hers and I hear her whisper back _it is, it is Ava, it is. _

She wraps her arms around my neck, pulling me closer and I do the same, trying to meld ourselves together, and I can feel that something start to slip away, settling in the sidelines I hadn’t noticed before.

Not – not _gone_, but acknowledged, seen, pushed back where it couldn’t shove unknown between us. And it feels like it is okay, will be okay, and we have to talk, maybe more than we’ve ever needed to before but, 

but her tears mix with mine, and her shoulders settle back to what feels like Sara, my Sara, the woman who broke time to fix reality who’s a hero and a captain and still whispers _It’ll be okay _not as a promise now, not a prayer, but an absolution, an acknowledgement,

and I think I believe it.

**Author's Note:**

> WARNINGS: references to suicide plans, a non-canon character commits suicide, references to rape and abuse, references to violence and murder, depictions of the effects of trauma/symptoms that may be ptsd, a lack of communication during sex/foreplay (brief, their partner stops when they see something's off), references to death/grief/morning of family members. Please let me know if I forgot anything and/or if something should be added to the tags!
> 
> Any and all feedback is very welcome and very appreciated! Thank you for reading either way!


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